Vancouver real estate agent Maurizio Mastronardi said he plans to fight the B.C. government’s attempt to seize a north Burnaby property he owns, which was once the site of a marijuana grow-op.

Earlier this month, B.C.’s Director of Civil Forfeiture filed a claim in the Supreme Court of B.C. seeking to seize a property on Braeside Drive in Burnaby. Mastronardi, a licensed realtor with an east Vancouver brokerage, said a marijuana grow operation at the rental property had been installed by former tenants without his knowledge.

He said he was surprised on Wednesday to learn of the civil forfeiture action, coming three months after criminal charges against him were stayed because of court delays.

On Thursday, Mastronardi denied he had any involvement in the grow-op, saying: “Everything I’ve bought I’ve worked for. I’ve been a realtor 26 years and I make a good living at it. I don’t need a 100-plant grow-op that’s going to yield me $2,000 or $3,000 a month.”

According to the statement of facts set out in the government’s claim, Mastronardi and his wife have owned the Burnaby property since August 2010, and during part of that time the property was “used to engage in unlawful activities,” including money laundering and the production and trafficking of drugs.

“The defendants did not and do not have sufficient legitimate income to have acquired and maintained the property,” the claim said. “The property was acquired and maintained with proceeds from production, cultivation, storage, concealment and trafficking of controlled substances.”

In February of 2011, Burnaby RCMP officers arrested Mastronardi as he left the property, which was assessed last year at $1.65 million. Soon after, Mounties executed a search warrant and found a marijuana grow operation with 152 plants, 41 pounds of recently harvested marijuana bud, a hydroelectric bypass, and other growing equipment, according to court filings. Mastronardi and four others were charged with possession and production of a controlled substance and theft of electricity.

A day before the 2011 Burnaby bust, Ridge Meadows RCMP executed a search warrant on a different property in Maple Ridge also owned by Mastronardi, the civil claim notes, where officers found a 443-plant marijuana grow-op.

Mastronardi said Thursday he did not know of any connection between the tenants who set up the grow-op at his Burnaby rental property and the tenants who set up the grow-op at his former Maple Ridge property.

Mastronardi sold the Maple Ridge property in April 2011, two months after the bust, for $315,000, property records show, after he bought it in 2007 for $420,000.

In his ruling, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Nigel Kent said: “A considerable portion of the delay can properly be laid at the feet of Mr. Mastronardi’s counsel. However, systemic failings on the part of both the Crown and the court also contributed to the problem.”

The B.C. Real Estate Council website shows Mastronardi’s licence was most recently renewed in March 2015. A call to the B.C. Real Estate Council on Thursday was not returned before deadline.

Mastronardi owns two other properties, both in east Vancouver, including the home where he lives with his wife.

B.C.’s Civil Forfeiture Act allows the government to seize proceeds and instruments of unlawful activity. According to the B.C. Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, “The law targets the profit motive behind crime and other illegal activities, to ensure — literally — that crime does not pay. Civil actions under the Civil Forfeiture Act are totally separate from criminal law and do not rely on successful criminal prosecutions.”

At a news event last month marking 10 years of civil forfeiture in B.C., the government announced the program had seized proceeds totalling more than $65 million in its first decade of operation. In the 2015-16 fiscal year alone, the program brought in $10.3 million, according to the ministry. Proceeds go to general revenues, with more than a third of the funds forfeited so far spent on crime prevention and victim compensation.

But civil forfeiture in B.C. has also been controversial. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association has criticized the way government and law enforcement agencies have used the program in certain cases, especially where no criminal charges were laid, and critics have raised concerns about potential abuses of defendants’ charter rights.

Mastronardi said Thursday: “It’s all a cash grab. The government’s just trying to put their hands everywhere, when they have no right to.”

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